Israel City Unveils Gay Holocaust Victims Memorial

[ismnotwasm]

Last edited Sat Jan 11, 2014, 04:42 PM - Edit history (1)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel's cultural and financial capital unveiled a memorial Friday honoring gays and lesbians persecuted by the Nazis, the first specific recognition in Israel for non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Tucked away in a Tel Aviv park, a concrete, triangle-shaped plaque details the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people under Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. It resembles the pink triangles Nazis forced gays to wear in concentration camps during World War II and states in English, Hebrew and German: "In memory of those persecuted by the Nazi regime for their sexual orientation and gender identity."

The landmark joins similar memorials in Amsterdam, Berlin, San Francisco and Sydney dedicated to gay victims of the Holocaust. While Israel has scores of monuments for the genocide, the Tel Aviv memorial is the first that deals universally with Jewish and non-Jewish victims alike and highlights the Jewish state's rise as one of the world's most progressive countries for gay rights.

"I think in Israel today it is very important to show that a human being is a human being is a human being," Mayor Ron Huldai said at the dedication ceremony, where a rainbow flag waved alongside Israel's blue-and-white flag. "It shows that we are not only caring for ourselves but for everybody who suffered. These are our values — to see everyone as a human being."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/israeli-memorial-gay-holocaust-victims-first

[Behind the Aegis]

1. It is nice to see.

Unfortunately, it is still quite rare. There are even those who aren't aware of the hate launched against gays and lesbians during the Holocaust. More and more people are becoming aware, but still many haven't a clue; even my avatar is lost on many people. It is also a shame that within the GLBT community, there are still many who have NO clue. I know when I was president of a gay student group, I looked all over for a speaker who was gay and in the Holocaust and it was next to impossible. Supposedly, the last gay Holocaust survivor died last year; soon, they will all be gone.

Note: the pink triangle and the yellow triangle (or star of David) were actually 1/3 larger than all other triangles to make it easier for guards and others to see from a distance. This wasn't true in all concentration camps, but it was in many. Jews were at the bottom rung of the "hate" ladder, even within the walls of the camps, but the dirt holding up that ladder? Gay men.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Dumb question

But how do people not know? it's historical documented fact-- do you think simple tend to gloss it over 'oh yeah and they murdered homosexuals too'

Or worse--actually nauseating to contemplate-- do people not care, thinking a Gay life has less value? Or perhaps not realize the larger implications?

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Not a dumb question at all.

Much of the Holocaust stories focus on the Jews because the main objective was the destruction of the Jewish people, as well as others. Consider that the pre-Holocaust Jewish population of Europe was 9.5M representing 60% of the world's Jews and some 6M were massacred, the numbers were staggering. It also didn't help that after this devastating rampage, anti-Semitism throughout the world was still at an all time high, and the Europeans that did nothing during the Holocaust, now pushed their problems onto another part of the world, Israel. IMO, I believe they were hoping the job would be finished. Which leads me to the gays...

After the war, many were not freed, they were actually sent to prison and those who did not end up behind bars were quiet about their persecution because being gay in the mid-40's was still illegal and that, of course, didn't change until the late 70's in the US and different parts of Europe. It wasn't until the mid-90's before we actually started to see conversations about the GLBT experience as a community, then the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed to many. There are still many who see what happened to gays (as it was almost exclusively gay men) as "understandable". Though recognition of the tragedy inflicted on gays are only now coming to fruition, it is largely due to the continued homophobia through the world. Even today, we see people mock the remembrances in one way or another.